‘Restorative principles could be among the most important lessons schools provide.’ Photo: by Artem Kniaz on Unsplash
Joy to the world: Priscilla Alderson on how to protect children from mental distress
‘Quaker silence helps them to care for their inner and outer worlds.’
Years ago, a residential Quaker event I attended seemed to contradict itself. Some sessions were on nurturing peaceful inner spirituality. Other sessions, on vital problems from international injustice to the climate crisis, stirred up anxiety and distress. I asked a group of older Quakers: what should we do first? Work on our own inner being, or help to sort out the world? ‘They both have to go together,’ the Friends wisely replied. This double process recognises how our thoughts and feelings are integral to three other aspects of daily life: bodies and nature; relationships; and social systems.
Our bodies and personal wellbeing constantly interact with the natural world, in the food we eat, the air we breathe, in physical exercise and, if possible, enjoyment of gardens, parks and countryside. Many young people are depressed by hunger, or feel hyper on a poor diet. They may be ill from cold, damp housing, or be isolated in high-rise flats, afraid to venture into violent streets. These personal, embodied worries are magnified by eco-anxieties that are especially felt by young people: fear and sorrow about destroyed rainforests, polluted rivers, and massive fires, floods and droughts that harm millions of people, besides many other species. Talking to young people about these physical worries is important. Yet since we experience and express everything through our bodies, practical support for healthy habits and activities is also vital.
Long waits for mental healthcare can increase the lonely helplessness the care is intended to reduce. This links to the second level: interpersonal relationships. These continually shape our mental health for better or worse, often moving in positive, upward spirals, or negative, downward ones. Some schools have high rates of ‘offending’, punishment and exclusion. Other schools work with love and joy, where everyone feels valued and safe, and with no punishments or rewards, such as Barrowford Primary School in Lancashire. The children and adults there work to change things for the better, and all are ready to admit when they might be mistaken and can learn new ways through respectful critical listening. They nurture courage and the confidence to believe that they can work together to reduce the huge problems of the climate crisis, racial injustice and phobias about gender and sexuality (all related to our bodies).
Interpersonal examples link to the third level. This refers to social systems that include: families, workplaces and communities; health, transport and many other services; sports, arts and religious groups; social and mass media, business and trade; and local, national and international economic and political systems. All can benefit or harm our health, collectively and individually. Many systems may seem inexorably fixed and remote. Yet if changes are attempted only in small local ways, they may have only few and brief effects. Healthy, happy schools need large-scale support, which is to say adequate government policies and funding, staff and buildings, resources and freedoms. Years of international struggle by young school students, which have gradually led to schools beginning to teach about global heating and its impacts, challenge local, national and international traditions and systems.
So, promoting interactive physical, mental and social wellbeing involves all four levels: healthy bodies and environments; interpersonal relationships; social systems; and each child’s inner being, thinking, feeling and spirituality. For example, RJ Working, a restorative justice programme, works with children and young people in Cornwall, often outdoors in settings such as Trebah Garden, using nature to increase their confidence, communication, problem-solving skills and adaptability – all while helping nature to thrive. The restorative model also supports children to tackle inequalities and injustices. Restorative principles could be among the most important lessons schools provide in everyone’s education. It is practical training in how to look after oneself and each other better, in person and online.
When together they tackle, for example, racism, children can increase their solidarity and commitment to justice, without needing to be rescued or led by adults. They learn about different points of view, and how to make peace between those who are harmed and those who caused harm. Young people who have had difficulties bring their own complex experiences and often become the best leaders of restorative practices. They share practical ways to solve problems in solidarity, to strengthen fairer communities, and they may then build connections across the world. In Northern Ireland, these methods have transformed conflict and crime and empowered young people’s part in politics. Practical (embodied) children’s shared activities can include drama, artwork, gardening, and becoming nature champions in their schools.
Quaker values are central here: to live adventurously and make the fullest use of opportunities to promote peace and justice; through faith to be committed to peace and nonviolence; to witness to the unique worth of each person, every culture, and the fullness of life on earth; and to contribute to the health and integrity of all our relationships, from local to global. This education values the promise of each child to flourish, supporting the common hopes of young people to shape a more just, inclusive world through peace education. As Peace at the Heart, a report from Britain Yearly Meeting, has it: ‘To cultivate healthier ways of relating to one another and to society aims to enhance wellbeing, promote inclusion, and encourage conscientious engagement in the social challenges of our times.’
Tarek Younis, a Muslim psychologist, argues that western ‘psy-disciplines’, individual counselling and resilience training, disconnect the self or mind from social structures and environments. When they avoid addressing external causes of anxiety and depression, they cannot directly improve young people’s physical wellbeing, or change the individuals or social systems that hurt them. If problems are internalised into the child’s mind, this risks blaming the child. That can reinforce the pain and helplessness caused by problems that adults have created but leave children to endure or resolve.
As well as important skills and knowledge taught in the formal curriculum, schools have a duty to help children to flourish. This often happens through the informal curriculum, concerned with how teachers and school students live and work together. That involves helping them all to nurture healthy bodies, vital ecosystems, loving relationships, and caring social systems. Quaker silence helps them to care for both their inner and their outer worlds. Schools that encourage children to work together on tackling problems recognise them as invaluable resourceful people who generate and co-create wellbeing.
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